Matthew and Andrew

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Andrew Bryson and Matthew Marshall are riding bicycles across the United States to raise money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation.
All of the daily/weekly updates will be made on this blog as well as videos and pictures.
Enjoy! and Please donate/spread the word. www.pedalacross.com

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Truckin...

Since Monday, we've covered about 220 miles of the great state of New Mexico. Unfortunately, this state is not going to let us go without a fight...uphill. We're about to tackle the tail end of the Rockies before we can be in Oklahoma. We might hit the tip of Texas for a little bit, but we're not sure that counts as bagging a state.

The magic of a hitchhiker: We leave a gas station after refueling on our favorite frozen burritos and using all of their water. We see a man walking with a backpack and a mini guitar, so we pass him with caution not to frighten him. Failure. I've never seen someone jump like that before. By the way, he looked like an old and beat John Lennon, just so you can picture it. We bike on and on like usual. Roughly 12 miles down the road, we're riding and talking as Andrew says "oh, nice, look who it is" as we come across that same guy sitting against a guardrail. Andrew yells out "cheater" as John replies "Dont go pickin up no hitchhikers, haha". We worked for the miles that he enjoyed in someone's vehicle, more power to him. 45 minutes later we saw him riding in the back of a pickup truck. I guess its a way of life we'll never understand.

We've been fortunate to have small towns, trading posts, and gas stations pop up frequently along our route. Sometimes we come across restaurants when there doesn't appear to be much else going on around it (no houses, community, etc). We found Papa Joes restaurant on our way to Coyote,NM. When we met the owner, he was quick to help us and not too surprised we made it there by bicycle. He told us about a guy that walked there with his stroller, I interrupted and said "DANIEL???". The man replied "yes, Daniel, you know him?". If you remember from our Tonopah, Nevada blog, we met Daniel on the side of the highway. It seems we're accidentally following his path down south. Strange, but exciting.